Better thinking. Better work.
Ideas, creative strategy, practical AI, and decades of hard-earned experience for independent creatives who refuse to become average. My name is Don Giannatti, and I am very glad you are here.
I had a great conversation with a very creative guy this morning.
He called to talk about mentorship.
During the conversation, I asked him where he wanted to be in 2027.
And he had an answer.
That was cool; often folks have no idea where they want to be next August.
Then I asked him about 2030.
Another solid answer. I was feeling quite good about the conversation.
He knew the income he wanted.
The kind of work he wanted.
The freedom he wanted.
He had the whole future mapped out.
Then I asked him one more question. THE question. The question I ask everyone who tells me what they want to do.
“What are you doing this weekend to make that happen?”
Silence.
Then uncomfortable silence.
“Uhhh…”
And it wasn’t because he was holding back or confused by the question.
It’s because he had no answer, no idea at all that this weekend is a viable and realistic place to start.
I mean, why wouldn’t you start today?
Or Sunday?
Is there some sort of rule I don’t know about that tells us when to start something?
I don’t think so.
I advised him to write this sentence down and look at it every morning.
Your calendar is your autobiography in real time.
This isn’t an unusual situation for creative people..
It’s practically a pandemic. Of sorts.
Imagine this scenario.
Some dude lying there in bed planning how he’s going to walk to the living room.
He’s imagined every obstacle possible.
He’s made little sketches and drawings.
He’s researched the best route to the living room (the hallway).
He’s watched videos about walking down halls.
He’s read books written by people who have walked through their homes.
He’s even reached out to a coach to help them get to the living room.
What he hasn’t done is put his feet on the floor.
I know why that is.
Goals are easy / Action can be a bitch.
We love goals because they don’t push back.
We risk nothing with goals. Nothing.
You can dream about making $200,000 a year forever, and nobody would argue with that dream, or even challenge it. There is literally no friction between wanting to be something and not doing it. (Well, maybe a therapist’s bill, or a majestically huge bar tab, but that’s just weakness on display.)
But send a proposal?
Now we might get ignored, and that makes us anxious. Anxiety is bad. We read that on Facebook, and it had a chart and everything.
Call a prospect?
And have someone we don’t even know turn us down? Are you out of your freakin’ mind? We can’t handle being told no. Rejection is death by a thousand cuts. Or even one if it is really mean and stuff.
Publish the article?
Yeah sure, and now people are going to judge it. They’ll see I am a total fraud and I’ll never live it down. Everywhere I go, people will point at me and say, “You’re the guy who wrote that thing eleven years ago. It sucked. You suck.”
Launch the product?
Why? Nobody needs the stupid thing anyway. I shouldn’t have quit my accounting job to make something no one wants even though all the people I showed it to love it, but they’re probably being nice to me and secretly hate it and want me to fail. My sister’s boyfriend had a niece who married a guy whose brother once tried to do something sorta like mine, and he failed, so why bother.
Yep, goals are emotionally safe from all that bullshit, and we never even break a sweat. Coolio!
But action is emotionally and often physically expensive. There is investment, tears, sweat, and hard work that may not show up in the next week.
Or year.
So people keep on polishing that dream, putting the final touches on it and never, ever doing a thing about it.
I hear people say they want a six-figure business.
Fine.
What are you doing to make your first two hundred dollars?
Because if you can make two hundred dollars you can probably learn to make two thousand.
Share Better Thinking. Better Work.
And the person who can make two thousand bucks repeatedly can probably figure out how to get to twenty thousand.
And eventually, we get to two hundred thousand.
The ladder is climbed one rung at a time. Hand over hand, pushing and pulling.
Nobody pole-vaults to the roof. If you think they did, you do not have the full picture, Bucky; you just think you do.
The obsession with distant goals has become a perfect,
easily explained excuse for avoiding the work today.
What if we focused on sales instead of a 35th round of ‘vision boards?’
Here’s a question that matters more than your five-year plan.
What are you doing before lunch tomorrow that could change your momentum for the rest of the year?
I’ll tell you what it shouldn’t be.
What you’re thinking.
What you’re researching.
What you’re organizing.
The real focus should be on what you're doing.
One proposal?
One phone call?
One article?
One landing page?
One conversation?
One new photograph?
One finished design?
One damned uncomfortable action you don’t feel brave enough to do.
That’s how careers are built.
Your future isn’t in 2030.
It’s literally in the next hour.
So stop telling me, her, that dude over there with the dorky hat, and yourself about the life you really want. Show us all what you ARE DOING now.
For the people who still believe great work matters.
Creativity isn’t getting easier.
The tools we use are. They definitely are.
And that changes the equation.
So every week, I write about better thinking, stronger creative skills, AI without the hype, and building a creative life that can survive whatever comes next.
No fluff. No hustle porn. No BS.
Just practical ideas for independent creatives who refuse to become average.
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